The report card is an annual statistical profile of women and education and training, health, income, family responsibilities, labour force, positions of influence and violence.

"The 2003 report card on the status of women in New Brunswick shows that women have improved their situation in the last few years through changes they made in their education and employment patterns," according to the Chairperson of the Advisory Council on the Status of Women in N.B., Dr. Mary Lou Stirling.

"But women in New Brunswick would benefit from more employment and training equity, increased female representation in positions of influence, quality affordable child care and other policies to improve their status. Our report card shows that women earn just 80.9% of what men earn, that there are regulated spaces for only a fraction of the children of working parents, that almost half of lone-parent women are poor, that women are almost absent in certain industries and occupations and that violence against women remains prevalent."

"The report card is useful to show where change is occurring or not in all of these areas, but it cannot show the link between issues," said Dr. Stirling. "Women know that the absence of child care has an impact on the gender pay gap, that poverty and family responsibilities contribute to women's health status, that the lack of economic autonomy is related to the number of women living in violence and that the low number of women in certain decision-making positions has an impact on all society."